Tuesday, October 26, 2010

"Redneck"

I object to the term "Redneck". It's a word with many origins, not all of which are negative. In fact, a lot of people proudly display the word on the back of their trucks, saying to the world, "That's right - I'm a redneck and proud." That's why I prefer to call those people white trash. It hurts more. You can't call them a redneck if they're proud of it. It's the same reason you can't call them ignorant, racist, backwards, stupid or fat. They're just too damn proud of it.

Historically, the word "redneck" has been used pejoratively to describe ignorant, backwards white people. At least by me. And when I say "historically", I mean "in the history of my using the the word, which is long and illustrious". Usually people only use it to describe poor people, which I think is wrong and do not do. But my objection is with how little it now hurts. I'd like to really hurt these people - hurt them in a way that having their economy crippled and making them poor cannot. I mean break their spirits.

I dream of a future when some white trash person who used to be upper-middle class is now dirt poor, looking for scapegoats, and, finding none, is simply too apathetic and broken to hate effectively. A lot of them are there already, but there are too many rich white trashes funding the poor ones' misunderstandings and brutal hate. So let's get the rich ones.

Here's what my dream would sound like: "D'joo f'nish off all the chee-ups?" (Did you finish all the chips?"Naw." (No.)"Gawdam..." (God-damned, then ineffective search for a scapegoat.)

My hope is not that the easy-to-identify "other" will no longer be there, but that hating them will be too pointless to even try. How calling people white trash helps that, I don't know. But I'm willing to try for as long as it takes.